14 April 2013

The Coachella Festival opened Friday and one of the most buzz-worthy elements has been a promo video for "Get Lucky", a ferosh new track from Daft Punk's highly-anticipated new album Random Access Memories. The song and video features singer/songwriter, super producer, designer and fashionista Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers. The latter was the lead producer of Chic, the iconic seventies disco auteurs.

A one-minute video was released last night as a commercial on Saturday Night Live. The track is all kinds of brilliance and fuses Rodgers' trademark bass, Pharrell's vocals and Daft Punk's electronica. The album is expected to drop May 21.

29 August 2012

Very good news. Frank Ocean's June 9 television debut on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was apparently so successful that NBC has decided to entrust him with their marquee musical performance slot. Ocean has been announced as the musical guest on 38th season premiere of Saturday Night Live on September 15th. Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane will host.

That will happen only nine days after another high profile television gig. The hip-hop singer/songwriter has been announced to perform September 6 at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards, where his "Swim Good" video is nominated in three categories. Rihanna will also perform.

"I'm happy when I wake up in the morning, and not with this freakin' boulder on my chest," said Ocean. "I wished at 13 there was somebody I looked up to who would have said something like that, who would have been transparent in that way."

channel ORANGE marks the first time an out artist has topped the R&B or hip-hop charts.

20 November 2011

GOP presidential candidate and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live. The candidate traded in some self-deprecating humor about his poll numbers on "Weekend Update." "Just a few months ago, we were polling at the margin error, so to have any digit at all is a pretty big deal," Huntsman said.

Huntsman is skipping the social conservatives-dominated Iowa Republican caucus. The candidate has "pinned virtually his entire campaign on winning the first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire" and joked about his Granite State "obsession."

FWIW: Huntsman comes across as the most reasonable GOP presidential candidate—which means he probably won't be nominated. Watch it AFTER THE JUMP ...

01 May 2011

Rave reviews for Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers. The Weekend Update host headlined the White House Correspondents' dinner and tore into everyone from President Obama to Juan Williams, Katie Couric and the Tea Party. The President also managed to deliver quite a few zingers.

Donald Trump served as Meyers' primary target of the night. The comedian taunted Trump's potential presidential candidacy, saying, "Donald Trump has said he's running for president as a Republican—which is surprising because I thought he was running as a joke."

Trump was not amused.

One of his final jabs at Trump: "[Trump has] said he’s got a great relationship with ‘the blacks.’ Unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he’s mistaken."

The President also zinged Trump on his birther conspiracies. "Donald Trump is here tonight Now, I know that he's taken some flak lately but no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like, 'Did we fake the moon landing?' 'What really happened on Roswell?' And 'Where are Biggie and Tupac?'"

Perhaps the epic moment of the evening was when President Obama played what he described as his "birth video." The footage was a clip from The Lion King which showed the birth of Simba.

In all, it was quite an evening. Watch the President and Seth Meyers' ROFL speeches AFTER THE JUMP ...

31 January 2011

GLAAD is demanding an apology from NBC/Comcast after this weekend's Saturday Night Live, which featured a parody of television that mocked transitioning and horomone therapy for transgender women.

"The piece was a mock commercial for estrogen replacement therapy and featured men with facial hair wearing dresses, meant to represent transgender women. This segment cannot be defended as 'just a joke' because there was no 'joke' to speak of. The attempted comedy of the skit hinges solely on degrading the lives and experiences of transgender women. Dehumanizing holding people up for ridicule simply on the basis of their identity fuels a dangerous and hurtful climate and puts people in danger, especially given how infrequently the media shines a fair and accurate light on the lives of transgender people."

This comes only two weeks after another offensive skit when SNL mocked Chaz Bono as "Cher's son-daughter."

GLAAD wants an apology, the clip excised from future reruns of the episode and removed from Hulu. The Estro-Maxx clip is on YouTube (for now) and can be viewed at NBC's website. Watch it AFTER THE JUMP ...

09 May 2010

After more than seven decades in show business, six Emmy Awards and a high octane Facebook campaign, the fabulous Betty White finally hosted Saturday Night Live. And from the opening monologue—"Now that I know what Facebook is, it sounds like an awful waste of time"—to "MacGruber" and the Census interviewee, Betty killed in every skit. Killed it. Last night's episode was easily the show's best in decades.

In addition to "Cherry Battle", Gabby performed the opening Monologue and was featured as "Public Employee of the Year" and "Crazy Lady Yelling the Window." Sidibe did fine last night and was RODFL as "Crazy Lady" where she was anything but "crazy." Oh and whoever wrote the monologue needs to step their game up. Watch the clips AFTER THE JUMP ...

15 September 2008

The election is proving to be fertile ground for Saturday Night Live's writers. The season finale begins—sans Barack Obama—with probably one of the funniest skits in recent memory. Amy Poehler returns as Hillary Clinton and Tina Fey's Sarah Palin is pitch perfect. (YouTube) Gotta love it when Palin refers to herself as a "MILF."

12 September 2008

Over the weekend, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama will appear on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. Although SNL lost most of its creative juices long ago, the show's writers were thankfully reinvigorated during the primaries. This one should be fun.

How much do you want to bet the Republican noise machine will use this and Obama's recent appearance on Letterman as further "proof" Obama is more Hollywood celeb than presidential timber? Of course the John McCain campaign will push this silly meme. At the same time they shop around Sarah Palin to the covers of People, Time and Newsweek—and deny it!—and will forget McCain's own appearance on last season's finale of SNL.